Water handling procedures and their association with childhood diarrhoea

ABSTRACT

Acute childhood diarrhoea is the leading cause of death in children under five in Ethiopia. This is largely the result of lack of access to safe water; poor environmental sanitation; and crowding. In view of this; the aim of the present study was to document water handling practices and their association with childhood diarrhoea in the Garamuleta District of East Hararghe Region; Ethiopia. Water handling practices of families were monitored and the occurrence of diarrhoea was documented every two weeks over a 16 week period in 254 children under 6 years of age. The mean walking distance from the primary water source was 4.5 minutes and the mean per capita daily water consumption was 7.6 litres. The two week period prevalence for diarrhoea during these follow-up visits ranged from 2.4 per cent to 14.8 per cent with a mean of 9 per cent; which corresponds to 2.3 episodes per child per year. There was no statistical difference between safe and unsafe water handling exposure groups in the occurrence of diarrhoea. Religion; site of water collection; time to fetch water; mother's education; type of container; per capita water consumption; and age of the child were found to be significantly associated with the occurrence of diarrhoea. It is concluded that relative to generally inadequate environmental sanitation; water handling practices are not an important contributor to acute childhood diarrhoea